


Sleep until the sun goes down

by EponineTheStrange (gallifreyandglowclouds)



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 04:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/832905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyandglowclouds/pseuds/EponineTheStrange
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Coffeshop AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep until the sun goes down

It’s Karen’s very first day of being the manager at Starbucks, which, while being some sort of notable accomplishment, was not what she intended when she graduated university three years ago with that degree in Creative Writing and English. 

What do you do with a B.A. in English, anyways? Her mom sent her a link to that song the day after she graduated. She thought it was funny. Karen certainly doesn’t. She really hates working at Starbucks, but it pays the rent, and it gives her time to work on that novel she started the day after she finished her undergrad. 

Coffee shops are where great ambitions categorically go to die. She used to laugh at the older baristas in coffee shops, the ones who basically made coffee with their eyes shut while their university aged compatriots couldn’t make the whipped cream thing work. She never dreamed that she would be one of them.

She gets to work at about 5, and opens all the doors and switches on all the machines, and once she’s done that she leans against the counter and sighs. She’s working with Andrew again, and she basically pretends that she doesn’t know that he goes about behind the restaurant and smokes weed in the alleyway. Then, he eats Doritos and gets cheesy orange shit all over the white paper cups and the customers complain. If he does it again today, she resolves, she’s going to hide his Doritos and not give them back until his shift is over. 

He shows up five minutes before opening time, and he’s lost his damn apron again. She keeps a stock in the back just for this purpose. 

This location isn’t particularly busy, so it’s just her and Andrew and this other girl, Elaine, who doesn’t tend to cause trouble or do drugs behind the shop so Karen doesn’t really worry about her. 

They have their few regular customers, the lady who ties her yippy chihuahua to the streetlight outside the store, the old guy who is a little obsessed with Karen’s ginger hair, the couple down who are getting married soon, and like to announce it by PDA-ing excessively in the front window of the store. 

Andrew’s Doritos go hide in Karen’s backpack fifteen minutes after his shift starts. He comes back so baked from his half-hour midmorning break that Karen has to spray him with febreeze so that he doesn’t smell too much like weed. 

“I think we need more whipped cream,” Elaine says as she finishes serving an exceptionally whiny little boy and his mother. 

“I’ll go check in the back,” Karen says, and takes the opportunity to disappear in to the stockroom and takes a few very, very deep breaths. She hates working in the mornings, and every other day she only has a closing shift, which is way better. One o’clock cannot come soon enough. 

She does eventually get to leave, though, when the next shift manager shows up. She goes home to her flat, a really small, kind of crappy place above a fish and chips shop, which perennially smells like grease, passes out on the couch while watching Jeremy Kyle reruns (again what has her life come to?), and writes about ten words of her novel (which does put her over 50 000 words though). 

Things go on.

* * *

The next day when Karen comes to work (in the afternoon, mercifully), there’s a new person sitting at a table by the window. He’s wearing a yellow bowtie and a tweed jacket. He looks young, though his clothes make him look older. He’s got a leather briefcase and a stack of papers beside him on the desk, which he’s scribbling all over. 

Andrew greens out in the break room, which occupies Karen’s attention for the first hour or so of her shift, but it’s not all that busy so she lets Elaine handle the customers by herself.

Mr. Bowtie comes up to the counter when she comes back out, and peruses the menu for a ridiculous amount of time before ordering a drink from Karen. 

“I’ll have a Caffe Mocha, if you wouldn’t mind,” he says with a smile. He has such an affected Oxford accent that Karen almost drops the pen that she’s writing his order on the cup with because she wants to laugh so hard. 

“For sure,” she says. “And who is this for?” 

“Matthew.” 

“Give me a couple of minutes,” she says, and turns around with a smile on her face. Elaine rolls her eyes at her. 

He’s leaning against the counter when she brings his drink around, and she notices now his round, Harry Potter-esque glasses that actually kind of work with his cheekbones. Those are nice cheekbones. 

“Here you go,” she says, handing him his drink.

“Thanks…” he says, and she thinks to herself,  _you can read my nametag you dorfus._

“Karen,” she replies, and feels acutely self-conscious of the Inverness brogue that hasn’t gotten any less strong since she moved to London at age 18. “Enjoy.” She goes to serve another customer, and he goes back to do whatever he’s doing at the little table where he sits. 

He stays there until about six o’clock, scribbling away, and then waves to Karen and leaves. She salutes him. 

* * *

He comes back in every other day that week, and the only person he seems to want to order drinks from is Karen, and she isn’t one hundred percent sure whether that’s nice or creepy or in that funny grey area somewhere in between. 

She doesn’t work much on the weekends, just goes in to count stock and such, and of course, he’s there. He’s dressed down a little today, just some skinny jeans and a t-shirt, and none of the silly bow tie stuff from during the week. He smiles at her when she walks by his table, and his eyes follow her back to the stockroom. 

Fifteen minutes later, Elaine pops back with a cafe mocha in one of the fancy porcelain cups. 

“Here,” she says, “go talk to him, because he’s making puppy eyes in this general direction and he’s kind of cute.” 

“Have you heard him speak?” 

“It’s part of the package, Karen. Now go.”

“I wasn’t aware table service was part of the usual Starbucks customer service,” he says, looking up at her with a slightly confused smile as she sat down.

“It can be,” Karen says, “if it’s not busy. So, what brings you to this little place, when there’s a wonderful two level store with more baked goods selection down the street?”

“I did go there, but it’s too loud. One needs quiet when you’re marking undergraduate essays.” He gestures to the pile of papers on the table. “Or, I suppose, for writing a dissertation.”

“Graduate student,” she says. “What subject?”

“History, especially that wonderful period between 1871 and 1914.” 

She nods. “I did an English degree a long time ago. Now I’m a Starbucks manager.” 

Matt nods. “Probably have some kind of a novel on the side or something.” 

There’s no trace of irony or contempt in his voice, which she doesn’t get, because most people don’t guess that she’s writing a novel, or if she tells them, they give her this look like she’s tossing her life away. (She maybe is, but that’s not the point.) “Yeah. How did you know?” 

“I guessed, I suppose,” he says with a sad smile. “There’s something pleasingly cliche about it.”

“Cliches exist for a reason,” Karen says, and Matt responds quickly with an “Amen to that.”

* * *

It’s actually relatively engaging conversation. Matt did his undergraduate at Oxford (and she’s calling him Matt from now on, because saying Matthew is far too ridiculous) and finished his masters there before moving on to UCL to do his Ph.D., which he has almost finished and doesn’t really know what’s happening after that.  

He leaves not long after they finish chatting, and it’s sort of pleasing to talk to him, because he’s much more filled out in her head than the bow-tie wearing moron that she had made him out to be. 

He’s in again all next week, and every day she finds a bit of time to chat with him. She finds out pertinent things, like that his last name is Smith, and that he’s lost his favourite maroon bow-tie which explains the shocking yellow one, and less relevant ones like the fact that his favourite colour is purple. 

“I was wondering if you’d like to join me for Indian food and interesting conversation this weekend, Ms. Gillan?” He says, leaning across the counter and handing her the piece of paper. It has his address written on it. 

She’s a little taken aback. “Yeah… that sounds fine. Can I come around 7 on Saturday?” 

He nods and smiles like she’s done him the greatest favour ever.

“I’ll see you on Saturday!” He walks back to his table, packs up his his stuff, and leaves the shop with a bounce in his step. 

When she gets home that evening, she Google-maps the address, and is incredibly surprised to see that it’s a little flat above a convenience store in Brick Lane. 

Well. She certainly wasn’t expecting that. 

* * *

Karen does not get super dressed up for Saturday night, because she’s pretty sure that it isn’t a date. Well, she’s fairly certain. 

She makes her way up the stairs by the store, and to his flat, and he lets her in. It’s not big, that’s for sure, but it’s tidy and there are full bookshelves on every wall, which she certainly approves of. 

It smells like he’s been cooking, which is another surprise in the long line that she’s been experiencing tonight. 

“Apologies if it isn’t as good as takeout,” he says sheepishly, “but I would always rather cook for someone if they are going to trek out to mine.” 

“No… it’s wonderful,” Karen says, smiling. “The kitchen in my flat is so non-functional that I would never dream of attempting anything like this.” 

He pulls out the chair for her to sit in, and then pours her a glass of red wine and sits down across from her. 

“This is wonderful saag paneer,” she says, after a few bites. 

“I picked up a few skills in my student days,” he says, looking down a bit sheepishly. 

“So riddle me this, Matt - how does an Oxford graduate end up living in a tiny flat on Brick Lane?” 

He presses his lips in to a thin line, and says, “The money from home seemed to dry up when I discovered that politics would not be my profession of choice. I sure hope I come out of this with some kind of employment, because I have more student debt than I know what to do with.” 

She nods. “I know the feeling. I’m still paying off my undergrad.” 

“To all those struggling with an arts degree,” he says, raising his glass for a toast and she clinks it with her own. 

* * *

The whole evening is pleasant, and she can’t remember the last time she had more fun on a date. (He put his arm around her when she was reading from one of his old books, and  _cooked her dinner_. She has now decided that it was quite obviously a date.) He even offers to walk her home, which isn’t even a walk, because it’s a massively long Tube ride, but he goes with her anyways.

She can feel her cheeks flush, even in the relatively cold air outside when they walk to the station. His hands are jammed in his jacket pockets, but they keep rubbing shoulders and because she figures that he isn’t just going to hold her hand, she links one arm in his. 

He keeps up with funny stories about what idiots some of the undergrads in his tutorial groups seem to be, and they both laugh when they remember doing the same things as first years. She rests her head on his shoulder when they sit down, and that makes him perfectly still and fairly quiet for their tube ride. 

They’re standing at the door leading to the stairs up to her flat, and trying to work out the slightly awkward goodbyes, because she doesn’t really want the evening to end, but they’ve been talking for too long and she can tell because the chip shop she lives above is closed for the evening/early morning. 

“That was lovely, Miss Gillan.” 

“God, call me Karen. I need to think of something to cook for you when you come over next weekend, Matt.” 

He smiles. “I’ll look forward to it.” He leans forward and kisses her on the forehead. 

“I don’t know what proper post-date protocol is,” he says apologetically.

“I’d be okay if you kissed me for real.”

So he does. And it’s pretty awesome.

* * *

He keeps appearing at that little Starbucks every day like clockwork through the spring and summer, but when fall arrives neither he nor Karen will be there, because she’s quit and decided to go to teacher’s college (though she will never, ever give up on that novel), and he swears that it isn’t the same without his favourite barista to serve him coffee.

He gets his doctorate. She teaches A-Level English. They get a flat with a working kitchen, and still eat Indian food every Saturday night. 


End file.
